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"Marco," he said when he heard her emerge.
"Polo," came the answer even farther away, widening the area of play.
Feeling confident, was she? Good.
Jake sunk under the waterline, striving to stay as silent as possible. With some stealth, he could pop up and surprise her.
But the little minx had the same idea, and his next round of Marcos were met with Polos scattered all over the lake as she darted from spot to spot, her giggles coming easier and easier with each volley.
"Do you want to give up?" she taunted from behind him, slightly breathless from the endeavor.
He could hear the smile in her voice. It widened his own, the muscles no longer creaking and stiff when he went to use it.Shedid that — with her smiles and her laughter and her determination to do whatever she needed to do to learn. Unbelievably, she'd thawed his icy cocoon.
"Not giving up," he said, gliding a bit closer and trying to keep her talking. "Are you going to give up?"
"Never! Come and get me." She laughed, a deep, sultry, husky laugh that hit him right in his balls.
Yeah, he'd love nothing more.
Jake's hands twitched with the need to grab hold of her, picturing her wet, luscious body all warm and squirmy against his. The vision was painted so viscerally bright that he questioned if he could restrain himself when he finally caught her. He'd fought so hard, sofuckinghard, to rein himself in, to dispel those types of thoughts and impulses. Banished them from his mind again and again and again, hoping each time would be the last, that eventually, with enough effort, he could deny this clawing, biting need to possess. He'd yet to succeed.
Fuck,she was just so damncute. Jake swam backward in a lazy, elementary backstroke, imagining the feel of Zorah's slick skin under his exploring fingertips. Arousal percolated in his groin as he weighed which handful he wanted first, deciding a firm grasp of a sizable breast sounded just about perfect.
Adjusting his dick as it sprang awake, he called out, "Marco."
Steady, gurgling water sounds answered. Jake listened harder, sharpening his hearing for the sound of a small head rising from the water. Maybe she was taking a pass underwater.
He counted to ten and tried again, a bit louder. "Marco."
No answer. Jake opened his eyes and scanned the placid surface of the now-familiar lake.
"Zorah?" He tried for calm. "Zorah, where are you?"
His head flew from one direction to the next, eyes and ears acute and attuned to every ripple or disturbance. Terror clamored up his throat.
Oh shit, oh no. No. No. No, this couldn't be happening. She was a good swimmer. A solid, capable swimmer, she wouldn't simply... disappear. This was a man-made pleasure lake, for god's sake, not a mercurial ocean with undercurrents and rip tides and sharks.
"Zorah!" he yelled as loud as he dared, not wanting to attract the notice of the Morris Hill patrol.
Arms pumping, he swam to the other side of the lake, trying to view all sides of the lumbering, shadowy dock. Even as he pushed his body, his lungs seized up, air stagnant and frozen, replaced by millions of molecules of dread. Fuck, what had hedone?
"Zorah! This isn't funny."
He spun in a circle, frantically scanning the shoreline as his life flashed before his eyes.
They'd kill him. No question. And he'd deserve it. Stupid and selfish enough to think he could look after an Omega like that and not endanger both of their lives in doing so. Why had he proposed this stupid game? He should've known better! Everything he touched turned to shit, and now he'd brought his curse to the most precious thing of all.
"Zorah!" his voice broke. "Zorah,please."
A soft giggle skimmed across the water and slammed into him like an arrow to the back. Was he hallucinating? He spun toward the sound, his heart tripping over itself when another smothered laugh crashed through his fear. The dock.
He took off at a dead sprint, pounding the water maybe even harder than he had when he saved the drowning boy. When he reached where the aging structure disappeared into the water, he surged up onto the platform and glared down at the wiggling mass of girl, clutching her stomach in peals of laughter. Alive and whole and cackling, like the joke she'd just played was some innocent practical jest and hadn't scared the fucking life out of him.
"Your face!" she chortled, pointing. "Oh my god, you should see your face!"
The accumulated turmoil of the last few minutes and the last few weeks and, indeed, maybe every minute since he'd arrived in Morris Hill, shattered every remaining scrap of his control. Chest heaving, Jake crashed to his knees. His hands slammed the wood on either side of her head, heedless of the decaying, splintering boards grinding into his palms. Arms and legs, knees and hands caged her in, their faces only inches apart, the water sluicing off his brow and splattering onto her face like an angry, one-man thunderstorm. The laughter died on her lips, alarm extinguishing her joy in an instant.
"You thought that wasfunny?" he snarled. "I thought you weredead."
